AMD Reveals Specs of HD8000M Series of Mobile GPUs

AMD has confirmed reports that it will be unveiling its new 'Solar System' series of mobile GPUs at CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, next month, along with two new GPUs code named 'Mars' and 'Neptune'. Another more advanced chip, code named 'Sun', will be made available in Q2 2013, around the time AMD's HD8000 series of desktop graphics are rumored to be released. The performance increase from the 7000M series of mobile GPUs is likely to be minimal, with more focus on performance and cost optimization instead of brute power. AMD has also revealed some additional details about the first few 8000M mobile GPUs to be released.

The 8000M series of mobile GPUs will range from the low-end HD 8500M, code named 'Mars', to the flagship HD 8970M, code named 'Sun'. AMD has not released any details of the high-end chip as of yet, however AMD has released the specs of many of the other GPUs in the series. All the chips will be based on a 28nm manufacturing process and will boast DirectX 11.1, OpenCL 1.2, OpenGL 4.3 and C++ AMP support, and will be available with either a 1GB or 2GB framebuffer. The low-end HD 8500M GPU will feature up to 33GFLOPS double-precision processing power and 20 texture units, as well as a 650MHz core clock speed. The more powerful HD 8870M GPU will have up to 62GFLOPS double-precision processing power, as well as 40 texture units and a 650-700MHz core clock.

AMD has not indicated that the chips will feature any significant architectural changes, so it is likely that the 8000M series of mobile GPUs will be based on the same GCN architecture currently featured in the HD 7000 series of desktop GPUs. This means the 8000M series are more likely to be geared towards reduced power consumption and heat output, consequently enabling smaller form factors and improved battery life.